


Prisoner 42-82-4131

by koalathebear



Series: The Expanse: Missing Scenes [4]
Category: The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey
Genre: F/M, Gen, Missing Scene, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-19 08:02:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8196958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koalathebear/pseuds/koalathebear
Summary: Set post-Abaddon's Gate.  Spoilers for Abaddon's Gate and Nemesis Games.





	

There were days like this when she couldn't really remember her name... any of them.

She closed her eyes for a moment and could hear the rasp of her own breathing, the beeping of the battered medical expert system as three long plastic tubes snaked into her veins, pumping her full of drugs that kept the world safe from her. Her lips were dry and parched and she licked them, exhaling quietly, the only sound in the room apart from the monotonous beep. 

She could smell disinfectant … the cheap soap they gave the inmates to use … Beneath the smell of the disinfectant she could smell the stale stink of old urine, vomit and other bodily fluids that the industrial strength cleaners hadn't been able to mask completely.

She turned her head slightly on the pillow, the coarse fabric scratching her cheek. Her eyes opened and she stared unseeingly at the bare concrete wall, its surface scratched and pitted. There was a wall-mounted screen but it was set to an empty glowing grey.

The blockers didn't just inhibit the chemical cocktail that her synthetic implants produced … they also clouded her mind, mixed up her memories into fiction and vice versa.

When she'd first been brought to "The Pit", a UN maximum security in North Carolina, her face had been expressionless as she had studied the place where she would live – and die. The building was low – a single storey peeking up out of the ground with administrative offices and a massive service entrance. The prison was beneath ground. She'd been taken past the two rows of monofilament hurricane fencing that blocked the path to a two-story concrete wall, looking up at the sniper nests that stood at each corner with automatic defence and control weapons.

The drugs they'd given her before her transport had made her sluggish, a heavy sick feeling in her stomach. Rough hands had urged her into an elevator made of steel and titanium and she'd recoiled at the overhead lights that had been harsh, flickering nauseatingly. The sharp dropping motion of the lift and the flickering lights had made her vomit violently.

She'd shuffled down the corridor, steps uneven and clumsy. The boots of the guards had echoed off the hard floor and ceiling. She had been barefoot, her feet sliding on the cold, brutal concrete of the hallway floor. Green-grey metal doors were in a line with identical windows of thick green-tinted glass that made the rooms beyond look like they were underwater. 

The security guards she had passed had stared at her momentarily, eyes cold and curious. The inmates she had passed had studied her, assessing her, wondering precisely where she would fit in the subterranean eco-system … 

Sluggish and confused, it hadn't taken more than a firm shove to make her topple onto the hard bed of her small cell and lie there, gasping for breath.

"Should we strap her down?"

"Nah … they gave her enough to bring down half a dozen men. She's going to be out of it for the rest of the week, probably …"

Then they'd closed the door and left her alone in the darkness.

At least the medical wing had light … artificial but at least sometimes she could close her eyes and imagine that the brightness against her eyelids was sunlight and that she was far, far away from here …

Far away from the cheap plastic hospital bed in a room with a steel toilet on the wall. A toilet, with no screen or privacy. 

Dignity was not a privilege afforded to the likes of her. She opened her eyes and stared at the pitted ceiling. This was her punishment for Ren … for the innocents on the _Seung Un_ … To be removed from humanity and apparently erased from the lives of anyone who had ever known her.

*

"Why did you do it?" 

She sat quietly, resting her pale hands lightly on the table that was bolted to the floor. The chair, too.

She closed her eyes for a moment, remembering the pain she'd felt when the guards had kicked her to the ground. She never cried though. Never. She deserved it … deserved all of it for the things she'd done. Bad things. Her long, black hair fell over her face in a thick curtain, hiding her from the world.

"Does she talk?" 

"Not much … usually really out of it … just stares at you with those dead eyes …A bit creepy."

"Well you know how many people she killed, right?"

"Hard to believe …"

"I believe it, I've seen a psycho with implants take out a platoon of soldiers without batting an eyelash."

"She was rich – you'd think she could have paid someone else to do the dirty work … why do this to herself?" 

She could hear their voices on the edge of her consciousness and her eyes stared ahead, dark and unblinking. There was no point talking to them. They didn't understand – couldn't understand. How could they? She herself didn't understand her own motivations. 

She sat and lowered her head and allowed her thoughts to drift away. Thoughts of family, of home hurt too much … instead, she thought of the _Roci_ … the enclosed spaces of the machinery shop … the blinding glow of the welding torch …

She closed her eyes again … she thought of making coffee for the crew … black for the very particular Holden. One whitener for Alex. 

One sweetener for Naomi. 

Two whiteners, two sweeteners for Amos.

Amos.

The name generated a flicker of warmth and comfort in her breast and for a moment, she allowed herself a moment's forgiveness, a moment's peace from her self-recriminations and nightmares and allowed herself to think of him.

*

Every day was pretty much the same. Escorted to the medical clinic to get her blockers, lunch in the cafeteria, half an hour of exercise in an enclosed underground courtyard. After that, she had the choice of sitting in her own cell or in a holding tank with nine other inmates for three hours. 

She had no idea how long she'd been in the Pit. She'd lost track of the time completely. 

Standing in the shower, the hot water sluicing over her naked body, she stared ahead at the tiles as if they could give her the answers to the universe. The guards would get annoyed. 

"Get out – are you trying to use up all the hot water?"

In the time she'd been in the Pit, she'd never been visited by anyone. Sometimes, she told herself that her family didn't know where she was. That's why no one visited.

She knew the truth. They didn't visit because they simply didn’t care – they were probably ashamed. 

If Julie had still been alive, she might have visited her. Julie the wilful, the one with a mind of her own who until she had become the black sheep of the family had been its paragon. 

Petyr her younger brother, clever and gifted in mathematics, had never been close to her … the twins Michael and Anthea had always been a world unto themselves, sharing jokes and comments that only they understood. 

Her father had never really _seen_ her as anything except a pale and disappointing shadow of Julie, so he certainly wouldn't have visited her even if hadn't also been imprisoned. If he could see her now, his lips would have curled disparagingly at her failure to complete her mission and he would have looked away dismissively. 

Her mother, stylish and elegant even in the midst of grief and loss would have shaken her head disapprovingly, appalled at her clothes, the dry, unstyled state of her long, lank hair, her pale face and the state of her nails that had not seen a salon for years ...

*

They slid the needle into her arm, three tubes snaking out. The sting of the sharp needle piercing her flesh still hurt but as usual she didn't flinch, just lay there quiet and still as the blockers slid through her bloodstream, wrestling with the myriad of other chemicals in her body.

"Hey you …" one of the guards told her.

They didn't have names here. The guards had told her that on more than one occasion.

She opened her eyes and stared at him unblinkingly. "You might want to stay awake – you've got a visitor."

Her eyes widened in surprise. The heavy, metal doors slid open and standing on the other side was a tall, powerfully built man with closely, cut dark hair that was barely more than stubble. His jaw was shadowed with three days worth of growth and his face looked tired. If it had been any other person, there would have been sympathy those light eyes, instead, they travelled over her slowly, missing nothing before returning to her face.

"Hey Peaches," he told her with a crooked grin. "No offence, but you kind of look like shit."


End file.
